


at every table, i'll save you a seat

by ladynoirist (stylostique)



Series: just stay this little (just try to never grow up) [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Cats, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Post-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Post-Reveal Pre-Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Pre-Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Roommates, there is one (1) brain cell in this house and the kitten fights plagg for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29536659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylostique/pseuds/ladynoirist
Summary: unbeknownst to them, adrien and plagg have the same plan for christmas morning: giving their kitten the best christmas he's ever had
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: just stay this little (just try to never grow up) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2173368
Comments: 28
Kudos: 105
Collections: post-reveal pre-relationship fics





	at every table, i'll save you a seat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [worteltje7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/worteltje7/gifts).



> this is a very very very late secret santa gift for the wonderful [worteltje7](https://worteltje7.tumblr.com) on tumblr! i'm so sorry for the wait but i really hope you like it!!

Adrien wakes up to a paw in his eye, and for once, it’s not Plagg’s—not that Plagg would ever wake up earlier than him.

The tiny mews that permeated his dreams grow louder and more persistent, until he pushes himself to a sitting position and brings a hand up to his face to scoop the little ball of fur away so he can finally open his eyes.

“Good morning, Monsieur Macaron,” he says, in his sleep-graveled voice, “Are you waiting for Papa so you can open your presents under the tree?”

But before Monsieur Macaron can respond, an arm slings around Adrien’s waist, slamming him back to the mattress with much more strength than a sleeping person should have. _Then again,_ he thinks, _this is a sleeping superhero._

Strands of dark hair, longer than the kitten itself, crisscross his field of vision as a voice mumbles in his ear, “too damn early, five more minutes.” From the outside, the intimacy, the domesticity of this scene is something which would have made fourteen-year-old Adrien’s hopelessly romantic heart burst, but nineteen-year-old Adrien has had years of practice flattening down any wilder dreams. She’s his best friend, she’s stuck with him through thick and thin, and it’s more than he deserves so his aching, yearning heart will have to put on its big kid pants and just Suck It Up.

The way she nuzzles his neck in her sleep, leaving the faintest of kisses at the crook, makes this endeavor much harder than it should be.

Monsieur Macaron seems to have decided that he'd rather stay in place, flopping onto Adrien's collarbone with a loud purr. His soft little kitten snores fill the room, and Adrien's heart melts, for the millionth time since he rescued him from that dumpster that fateful day.

A sleepy Marinette is an affectionate Marinette is a dangerous Marinette. Especially since Adrien’s acutely aware of the fact that she’s not affectionate with just anyone—quite the opposite, really. Cuddly, clingy Marinette seems to be a sight reserved only for him, and it gives his fragile, yearning heart the riskiest of hopes whenever he hears Alya, or even Marinette’s parents, complain about her grouchy not-a-morning-person demeanor.

It’s a downright miracle that the love of his life decided to move in with him _(even if it was ostensibly to help him care for his ridiculously spoiled cat)_ that she falls asleep in his bedroom quite frequently, that he gets to wake up to her more often than not, but this train of thought is a slippery slope, a dangerous terrain, and the last thing he wants to be is an Icarus, he’s so close to his sun and he knows, from years and years of experience, that if he gets any closer, she’ll be forced to burn him.

Adrien drags himself out of bed, and Marinette hitches a ride, yawning and slinging her blanketed arm around his shoulder as Monsieur Macaron hops into the crevice created between her elbow and his neck. As they approach the kitchen, she scoops Monsieur Macaron up with one hand and settles in at the counter, swiveling her barstool idly as Adrien pulls out their coffee cups and cafetiere. She spoons some coffee into the cafetiere, idly batting away Monsieur Macaron’s curious paws, and the sight makes Adrien’s heart melt.

Adrien rummages through the pantry for breakfast, but there’s nothing in there. They’re fresh out of flour and eggs, and they’d evidently forgotten to bring back _baguettes,_ of all things, from Marinette’s parents’ place last night. He resigns himself to going out into the cold to buy breakfast, scoffing at how proud he was of himself the previous day for remembering to pick up a special Christmas breakfast for Monsieur Macaron. Hopefully he could pretend to have bought the kitten’s breakfast along with theirs, because if Marinette (or Plagg) found out that he’d bought _cat_ breakfast and forgotten _human_ food, they’d never let him live it down.

“Oh, if you’re looking for breakfast,” Marinette calls, interrupting his musings, “Papa packed us a whole bûche de Noël. I put it in the fridge, right next to the king salmon filets you got for Monsieur Macaron.”

Adrien groans. _So much for being sneaky._ His lady knows him way too well, after all, they’re partners for a reason. Marinette and Plagg burst into laughter as he retrieves the food from the fridge, and he pulls his face into a scowl far more dramatic than what he actually feels.

Adrien slides the boxes of food across the counter to Marinette. She’s preoccupied with pouring freshly brewed coffee into their matching mugs, but Monsieur Macaron is more than happy to help with breakfast. He patters along the marble, tiny claws click-clicking as he walks, and he’s about to swipe his paw into the carton of bûche de Noël when he finds himself scooped into the air by Marinette.

 _“Meow meow meow meowwwwww!”_ His plaintive cries receive no sympathy from Marinette, who laughs as she pulls him into a cuddle, lightly flicking his little nose.

“Meow, meow, meow, meowwwww! Meow at me all you want, but you’re not gonna get any! Papa’s gotten you your own breakfast, greedy thing!”

Monsieur Macaron evidently decides it’s time to change his strategy, shooting Marinette the most pitiful starved kitten eyes Adrien’s ever seen. Adrien shakes his head at the kitten, smiling ruefully. He’s shown his Lady that very expression dozens of times, and it’s never, ever worked on her. And sure enough, it doesn’t work this time either.

“Don’t give me that look! I’m _immune_ to kitty eyes, no matter how adorable they are,” Marinette says, holding back a laugh. He hisses at her, mad that he hadn’t gotten his way, and she takes _some_ pity on him, peppering his little head with kisses and scratching his chin until he lets out the most reluctant purr. Her hair falls across her face and her eyes sparkle as she laughs, and it’s a wonder that Adrien doesn’t melt into a puddle right there.

“Adrien,” she trills, “the little prince is hungry… starving…” Monsieur Macaron takes it upon himself to harmonize his mews with her teasing voice. Adrien snatches up the salmon from the fridge and hurries to the stove to heat it up. Once he’s got the filets in the pan, Marinette walks over to him, a cup of coffee in each hand. She clinks their cups (Ladybug and Chat Noir, a limited edition set Nino had got him) and breathes in the aroma of her coffee as he takes his first sip.

Unlike Marinette and her coffee aficionado ways, Adrien’s not much of a fan of coffee, but he’s grown accustomed to the taste, needing it to keep himself awake through his busy, busy days. But even if he loathed the drink, he’d still never say no to a cup that Marinette made. _Not_ because he’s “more whipped than the crème Chantilly” she uses on his drink, thank you _very_ much, Alya, but because… well. After so many meals devoid of love, he’d be a fool to turn down something full of it, even if that was just raw egg yolks she whisked in a cup.

Maybe he _was_ crème Chantilly, after all. He’d never admit this realization to Alya or Nino, but he can’t think of a better person to be whipped for than Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

“You really are sleepy today,” she chuckles, snapping him out of his reverie. She nudges him and points to the salmon, which is just shy of overcooked on one side and desperately needs to be flipped. Adrien’s usually the one who makes breakfast while Marinette’s slumped on the counter, but he takes a long sip of his coffee after rescuing the salmon, deciding to allow her to think that his sloppiness today is because he’s still tired. He doesn’t want to think of what her reaction would be if he told her the truth—that he _knows_ she doesn’t want him and he’s spent five whole years trying to get over her, only to fall deeper and deeper in love with her every day.

Satisfied with Monsieur Macaron’s preoccupation with sniffing the salmon as far away from the flame as he can get, Marinette slices and plates the bûche de Noël.

Adrien walks over to the counter, pan-seared salmon in one hand, kitten in the other, and sets Monsieur Macaron down. He perches on the barstool next to Marinette’s and plucks a special fork from a drawer to spear a little piece of fish, but Monsieur Macaron’s already trying and failing to snap up the fairly large filet with his own tiny mouth. He chuckles and scratches Monsieur Macaron’s little chin, dropping a kiss on his forehead as he slices up the salmon into manageable pieces. Monsieur Macaron paws at the fork for a moment but loses interest as Adrien’s fingers draw close to his mouth, a perfectly seared bite of salmon gripped by them. A soft sigh diverts Adrien’s attention from the kitten nibbling at his fingers, and he glances up, catching Marinette’s gaze. Her _incredibly fond_ gaze.

It’s so hard to squash hope when she’s looking at him like that. Like how _he_ looks at _her_ when she won’t notice it. He has to remind himself again and again and again that the fondness in her eyes is just _friendship,_ just affection for her _best friend_ and his adorable and spoiled kitten, that being greedy would end up destroying what took five years to build.

He’s still arguing with himself when he feels something against his lips. Marinette’s leaning across with her fork, trying to feed him a piece of pastry, and when his jaw drops with surprise upon registering her, she pops the morsel into his mouth and leans back, smugly satisfied. Adrien hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels. His cheeks burn as he shovels bûche de Noël into his mouth, while Marinette quips, “Someone needs to feed _my_ kitty when he’s too busy feeding _his.”_

He’s honestly surprised that he _doesn’t_ hear Plagg cackling at that.

When he’s done with his breakfast, Adrien feels a tug on his hair and a strange weight. When he tries to tilt his head to investigate, tiny claws sink into his scalp and he’s suddenly _incredibly_ grateful for the claw caps Tom and Sabine had given Monsieur Macaron for Christmas. Marinette seems to be enjoying his torment, if her giggles and the phone she pulls out to record him are any indication.

Monsieur Macaron’s weight shifts and with a little wiggle, he launches himself off Adrien’s head, scrabbling to gain purchase on the pendant lamp overhead. Marinette lets out a shriek and leaps up to try and catch him, dropping her phone, which would’ve clattered to the floor if it weren’t for Adrien’s quick reflexes.

“You know, for someone who claims that I spoil and baby him too much, you sure lose your shit when he’s in the slightest bit of danger,” Adrien says as he straightens up on his barstool. “He’s a _cat,_ LB, us felines have nothing to fear from a bit of a drop!”

Marinette blows a raspberry and swats blindly at him, very nearly catching his head, an impressive feat since her eyes are still laser-focused on the chat-delier (he’d have to use that one sometime). She bounces on tip-toe, trying to scoop the kitten off the lamp, but Monsieur Macaron, his sneaky baby, dodges her _quite_ adeptly as he swipes his paw at her fingers.

“Don’t hit Maman, you naughty boy!” Marinette doesn’t realize what she’s said until she hears the words from her own mouth. Maman. _Maman_ to Adrien’s _Papa._ She freezes in place, her face glowing red at the implication she’d made. Adrien plays along to spare her the embarrassment she must be feeling. “You heard Maman, Monsieur Macaron. Be nice, good boys don’t climb the light fixtures! If you come down right now, Papa’s gonna make you a special—”

 _“HEY!”_ Adrien’s attempt at bribery is cut off by a loud shout that makes Monsieur Macaron nearly lose his footing. Plagg zooms up right into the kitten’s face, and with the utmost indignation, says, “Don’t _ruin_ my hard work, you _brat!_ There’s room for only _one_ entity of chaos in this house and that’s _me!”_ He jumps Monsieur Macaron, and the two spoiled cats promptly fall off the lamp into Marinette’s outstretched hands in a yowling heap.

“Oh, Monsieur Macaron, you poor _baby!”_ Marinette cradles him in her arms and strokes his arched back, and it _amazes_ Adrien how she doesn’t bat an eyelid despite how deep Monsieur Macaron’s sunk his little red-and-green (“it’s _festive,_ my Lady!”) claws into her forearm. Plagg sticks his tongue out at her and zooms back to the light fixture, drawing Adrien’s attention to the strange flower arrangement on it.

“What’s this, Plagg?” he asks, carefully dislodging it from the lamp. The sprig has a few leaves and some tiny white bulbs on it. He tries to braid it into a crown for Monsieur Macaron, but it’s too brittle, nearly snapping under the pressure.

Somehow, through the sheer intensity of his exasperation, Plagg stretches his stubby little paw enough to smack his own forehead. Marinette frees her arm from Monsieur Macaron’s claws and takes a closer look, twirling the cutting around in her fingers to examine it.

“Looks like lily of the valley,” she says, frowning. “But what’s it doing here? It’s way too early in the season for—"

“It’s way too early in the morning to put up with you _CLOWNS!”_ Plagg shrieks and dives at her, snatching the plant from her fingers. He flies up and hooks it back onto the pendant lamp, hissing at Monsieur Macaron for good measure. Monsieur Macaron lets out an offended yowl and leaps into Adrien’s arms to sulk.

“This,” Plagg proclaims, with a flourish and no small amount of pride, “is _mistletoe.”_ He pauses dramatically as if he’s waiting for applause, and he huffs when he sees Adrien and Marinette sharing a glance and an eyeroll.

“My dear stupid dumb _idiot_ kittens,” he sighs, “I guess it’s my fault for expecting you uncultured cheese-haters to have the slightest clue about anything outside your own love nest.” He scoffs and continues, “Mistletoe is an ancient magical herb that’s been there from the beginning of time, even _before_ Christmas itself! It’s a very powerful plant, a blessing or a curse depending on how _you_ choose to deal with it!”

At this, Tikki, who’d been quietly eating her serving of pastry, scoffs.

 _“Plagg!_ Stop scaring them, you know that’s not true!”

Plagg makes a rude gesture at Tikki.

“Who’s the expert of chaos and bad luck? Not you, not these mutton-brains, not that demon infant, _me!_ I know _exactly_ what I’m talking about and Adrien knows better than to doubt me! I was right about the dinosaurs and I’m right about this too!”

He shifts his attention back to Adrien and Marinette and says, “Legend, and, you know, luck magic that _I_ know more about than _Tikki,_ says that if two people find themselves under a sprig of mistletoe and share a kiss, they’re blessed with a year of good luck. But if they _don’t_ kiss, they’re cursed with a _lifetime_ of misfortune!” Tikki scoffs at this, but Plagg barrels on. “It’s really all up to you, whether you want a hundred years of bad luck or a minute of fun!”

Adrien studiously avoids Marinette’s gaze, shooting Plagg the fiercest glare he can muster. He can’t _believe_ that Plagg would do this to him. Plagg claims to have observed human nature over millions of years but Adrien thinks—Adrien _knows—_ he’s full of shit and this just proves it. He once tried to tell Plagg that getting high on cheese mold while humans are in the vicinity is _not_ the same as being an observer of human nature, but he gave up when Plagg bit his nose in retaliation. He wishes he’d ignored that bite, because Plagg’s “intimate understanding of humans” is going to be responsible for signing the death warrant of his friendship with the love of his life.

A movement from the corner of his eye catches his attention. Marinette’s swiveled her seat to face him, an unreadable expression on her face, and for once, he can’t figure out what’s going through her head.

“If this—” she says slowly, waving her hand at the delicate, _dangerous_ plant “—could give us a year of good luck, well… it’s our duty as superheroes to take advantage of it, right? Since we’re, you know, the representations of creation and destruction, good and bad luck.”

Adrien leans his chin on his palm to keep his jaw from dropping, but he’s sure the expression on his face is somewhere in the vicinity of thunderstruck. Without breaking eye contact, Marinette barrels on, “It would be really irresponsible to the citizens under our protection to just… throw away a chance at luck that could help us protect them better, you know?” Somehow, Adrien gets the feeling that she’s not talking about Paris or superhero duties at all, and hope fills his chest, laying waste to the years of practice he’s had guarding his heart from his own expectations.

 _“Good_ going, Pigtails!” Plagg crows. “I’m so glad at least _one_ other person in this house has camembert for brains, I was getting so lonely with that _cheddar head_ of a holder!” Adrien doesn’t even register this insult, as caught up in Marinette’s unblinking stare as he is. “If you kids are worried about bad breath, I could be persuaded to share my camembert as a freshener, just this once,” Plagg says helpfully.

“Unless, is that, unless _you_ won’t dant to miss ke—uh, _kiss_ me!” Marinette blurts out, her face somehow flushing an even deeper shade of red as she stacks up the dishes with shaking hands. Adrien hadn’t realized she’d been waiting for a response, caught up in her mesmerizing gaze, and his hand snaps out to ever so gently catch her wrist. She sits back down, ever so slowly, and stares at him like a deer in the headlights.

“W— with your permission, my Lady?” he asks, and for some reason his own words remind him of something, an amorphous cloud of a memory that dances just beyond his grasp. He leans forward inch by inch, at a pace that should allow her to pull away, just in case she’s changed her mind, and he can hear his pulse thundering in his ear, desperately hoping he hadn’t misread the signs, that she was actually _serious,_ that—

She clasps his cheeks in her smooth, warm palms and crushes her lips against his. Their teeth clack against each other, his nose is squashed uncomfortably against hers, they’re leaning toward each other at an incredibly precarious angle that’s just a few degrees away from sending them toppling to the floor in a heap… and Adrien’s never experienced anything better in his life.

Marinette clambers into his lap, causing her chair to fall over and his to nearly suffer the same fate. The chair makes a loud crash as it clatters to the floor but neither of them notice—she’s too preoccupied with turning his brain into jelly. Sitting on his lap, her hands are much freer to wander, and she takes full advantage of the fact, tangling one hand in his hair and running the other down his back, slipping her fingers under the hem of his shirt. She nibbles at his bottom lip and he can’t hold back his whine of pleasure, and as his lips part she slips her tongue in and _oh._

 _This must be heaven,_ he thinks, _and if it’s not, I could die happy._

Adrien moves one hand to the small of her back, pulling her closer, closer, closer, and his other hand trails up her spine, along her shoulders, to tangle in the hair at the nape of her neck. Marinette lets out a pleased hum at that, and he lets his fingers sift through her hair, smiling into the kiss as she sighs. Her fingers scratch at his scalp where his cat ears would be while transformed and he can’t hold back the loud, fierce purr that ensues, vibrating so hard that he breaks the kiss. He buries his head in her neck in his embarrassment, setting off giggles that just make him purr even harder. He nibbles her neck in retaliation and her giggles are overcome by a _loud_ moan, her fingers digging into his back and her legs wrapping tightly around his waist.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but when they finally break apart, they’re panting like they’d been underwater for hours on end. Marinette rests her forehead against his, and kisses him again.

 _Maybe Plagg had a point,_ he thinks, _maybe he knows about something that's not cheese after all._

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to the incredible [pi](https://picayunearts.tumblr.com) and [emsy](https://emsylcatac.tumblr.com) for keeping me sane and motivated <3


End file.
